This article is meant to be posted in atulsongaday.me. If this article appears in sites like lyricstrans.com and ibollywoodsongs.com etc then it is piracy of the copyright content of atulsongaday.me and is a punishable offence under the existing laws.

Six songs from “Dharti”(1970) have been posted in the past. Here is the seventh and final song from the movie. It is sung by Lata. Hasrat Jaipuri is the lyricist. Music is composed by Shankar Jaikishan.

The song is picturised as a villain’s den song cum “dancing under duress” stage dance song and it is lip synced by Waheeda Rehman. Ajit is the chief guest in this august gathering of baddies. I am unable to identify others visible in the picturisation. So I request our knowledgeable readers to help identify others visible in the picturisation.

Lyrics of this song were sent to me by Prakashchandra.

With this song, “Dharti”(1970) joins the list of movies that have all their songs covered in the blog.

This article is written by Avinash Scrapwala, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a contributor to this blog. This article is meant to be posted in atulsongaday.me. If this article appears in sites like lyricstrans.com and ibollywoodsongs.com etc then it is piracy of the copyright content of atulsongaday.me and is a punishable offence under the existing laws.

Story of this movie was written by M.K.Tamanna and Screenplay was written by Benoy Chatterjee. Dialogues of this movie were written by Sagar Sarhadi and Safdar Hussain. Additional Dialouges were by Ela Maheshwary. Editing for this movie was done by D.N.Pai and M.S.Shinde. This movie was passed by Censor Board on 29.12.1979.

This movie had eight songs, which were sung by Jagjit Kaur, Lata Mangeshkar, Manna Dey, Mahendra Kapoor and Mohd Rafi. Music of this movie was composed by Khayyam Saab and lyrics for all the eight songs were penned by Sahir Ludhianvi.

This article is written by Raja, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a contributor to this blog. This article is meant to be posted in atulsongaday.me. If this article appears in sites like lyricstrans.com and ibollywoodsongs.com etc then it is piracy of the copyright content of atulsongaday.me and is a punishable offence under the existing laws.

If one were to analyse Hindi film songs by content, most of them would fall in the love-romance category. This is understandable because a very high proportion of films revolve around love and romance.

Then there are those which are based on non-romantic relationships. Parent-child, siblings, friends and so on.

Then there are inspirational songs, philosophical songs, religious songs, party songs and many other categories of songs. In fact on this blog, thanks to its fairly granular tagging, we can zoom into any specific category of songs of interest.

One particular category of songs that is not all that common is the political song. By this, I mean a song that takes on the political establishment. There are of course films depicting politicians, often in a bad light, but most of them have a romantic side to them. So the songs are also usually of the romantic type.

The first song that comes to my mind in this connection is “ye jo public hai ye sab jaanti hai “ from Roti (1974). When I checked this song on the blog just now, I could not help a wry smile as I noticed that Atul has categorized it under “ground reality”. There doesn’t seem to be a “political song” tag yet.

The song for today could also come under this “ground reality” tag. It has been sent to me by Avinashji, who has also written down the lyrics for it (both in English and Devanagari). He requested me to do a write-up on it, possibly because it lends itself to philosophical musings on politics. And Avinashji is by now familiar with my tendency to philosophise.🙂

So here goes.

First of all, I must say that my views are not specific to a particular political party. Or even limited to the Indian political environment. They could apply anywhere, at any time because they are based on first principles of citizen-government engagement.

I will try to keep this brief here because this is a song blog and not the right platform for philosophy. I don’t want to bore the readers.🙂

This song is picturised on Mehmood and a bunch of donkeys. Its core message is citizen protest against the government of the day. The donkeys supposedly represent citizen leaders who want to lead a protest to Delhi on behalf of citizen donkeys.

So what are their demands? Among others, freedom from persecution and oppression (represented by dhobi raaj). Recognition of hard work of labourers (represented by the hard-working donkey, a term sadly used as an abuse). Demand for basic necessities of life, like a roof over one’s head (a “quarter”) and food (“tamatar”).

Thus, in a nutshell, this song captures some of the most basic complaints citizens have of government. That citizens are symbolized by donkeys is a deliberate attempt to highlight their plight and thankless lives.

Although this song is almost exactly 50 years old, much of it resonates even today in Indian society.

Of course India has progressed a lot since 1967. Many more Indians lead comfortable lives today compared to people of that time.

But there are still many millions who are suffering from the plight that this song highlights.

Important in this song is the “protest” element. Mehmood not only appeals to the government but also threatens to go to the UNO, he threatens to file a case against the government (there is a picture in the background which I believe is the Bombay High Court).

Of course this is all in jest – in reality, the power imbalance between the citizen and the government makes such a course of action laughable.

And this is what I often philosophise about. And feel sad about.

The power imbalance between citizen and government.

In theory, the government, represented by the Cabinet (and the PM), and the bureaucracy which works under the government, exists for the people. In theory.

A government without people is unthinkable. If people didn’t exist, there would be no reason for a government to exist.

A government exists ONLY because there are people who need a collective force to execute tasks on their behalf. Tasks that are in common interest – like protecting people from external and internal threats. For maintaining law and order. Or providing common infrastructure that might not be feasible or practical for each individual to separately attempt for himself.

In a democracy, this is achieved through people electing leaders from amongst themselves. These leaders are vested with the right to act and decide on behalf of the population. And naturally, with such right, comes the duty to deliver to this expectation.

So, in every sense, in theory, the elected representatives are only agents of the people. Those who they appoint to work for the people (i.e the bureaucracy) are also “public servants”. So in theory, the power lies with the people.

This is also how the Constitution envisaged the situation – and provided for appropriate checks and balances in the system. This was mainly through attempting to avoid situations of conflict of interest (Executive, Legislature and Judiciary clearly separated). And through the creation of institutions that would be independent of these.

Sadly, as we all know, this is only theory.

In reality, much of this has been compromised. As a result, today, the power equation is hugely skewed in favour of the government. Citizens, supposed to be the master, often feel powerless.
Yes, they can choose to voice their views once in five years, through the ballot box. But that’s once in five years! And as long as the systemic issues are not addressed, it means, even if there’s a change of government, things are not likely to improve for the citizen.

So much of my philosophizing has to do with this. It bothers me when I see citizens behaving like slaves. We need citizens to become more aware of their rights. Duties too, of course – we often forget that too.

But if we want to have a more evolved society, we definitely need citizens to step up. We need them to not just accept a situation as it is. We need them to demand more from those in power. Make them accountable at all levels – even to the lowest level of a local project in a village or ward.

Only when we have this level of citizen engagement and empowerment, will we have the government too on its toes. The media is supposed to be the public watchdog for this purpose – but the less said about today’s media, the better.

Anyway, these thoughts crossed my mind when I listened to this song, so I thought I’d share them here on the blog. Hope I didn’t bore you too much.🙂

Once again, this has nothing to do with a specific government. It’s more about “first principles” and therefore apply in any situation.

I will now leave you to enjoy this song, starring a bunch of donkeys. And Mehmood too, of course. The song is in Rafisaab’s voice, written by Rajinder Krishan and composed by Ravi.

This article is written by Avinash Scrapwala, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a contributor to this blog. This article is meant to be posted in atulsongaday.me. If this article appears in sites like lyricstrans.com and ibollywoodsongs.com etc then it is piracy of the copyright content of atulsongaday.me and is a punishable offence under the existing laws.

Today 8th December’2016 is the 81st (08.12.1935) Birth anniversary of actor and producer Dharmendra.On this occasion here is a song from the 1980 movie ‘The Burning Train’.

Many songs picturised on Dahrmendra are yet to be posted on the blog, and quite a few of his movies have not even made their debuts on the blog, so a wide choice of movies and songs are available that can be considered for an occasion like this.

However, since the lyrics of this song were already lying ready and un-posted (since Oct’2013) I have selected this song from ‘Kishore Kumar-R.D.Burman’ combination for discussion on this occasion.

This movie had six songs penned by Sahir Ludhianvi and composed by R.D.Burman. Asha Bhonsle, Kishore Kumar, Mohd Rafi, Padmini Kolhapure and Sushma Shreshtha and Usha Mangeshkar gave their voices to the songs in this movie.

Two songs of this movie have been posted on the blog. Like Olympic games, the songs of this movie also appear in the blog at four years interval.🙂. The first song from the movie to appear on the blog was ‘pal do pal ka saath hamaara’ on 08.12.2008 and the second one ‘teri hai zameen tera aasmaan’ was posted four years later on 17.10.2012. And four years later, here is this third song from the movie to appear in the blog.🙂

Let us now enjoy the beautiful verses of Sahir that are beautifully composed by R.D.Burman and sung by Asha Bhonsle and Kishore Kumar, and wish Dharmendra a very very happy birthday today!!

This article is written by Avinash Scrapwala, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a contributor to this blog. This article is meant to be posted in atulsongaday.me. If this article appears in sites like lyricstrans.com and ibollywoodsongs.com etc then it is piracy of the copyright content of atulsongaday.me and is a punishable offence under the existing laws.

Kishore Kumar – his many moods …
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In my current search for missing Kishore Kumar songs on the blog, this song fits the bill perfectly. This is a song from his earlier decades i.e. before the seventies, here Kishore Kumar is singing for himself and this is the only Kishore Kumar song from ‘Asha – 1957’ that is yet to be discussed in the blog. In addition, this song also had the added qualification of being one of the ‘lesser heard’ songs too. Personally I do not recall any occasions of listening to this song in the past.

This movie had total of eight songs in it(including one multiple version song which is also the most known song of this movie ‘eena meena deeka’) composed by C.Ramchandra. Rajinder Krishan penned the lyrics for all the songs. Asha Bhonsle, Kishore Kumar and Lata Mangeshkar gave their voices to these songs.

This movie was passed by the Censor Board on 31.08.1957.

Four songs from this movie (five considering the one multiple version song) have been posted on the blog so far.

Let us now enjoy this final Kishore Kumar song from this movie, which talks of a ‘egalitarian society’ for all and seeking justice for the deprived ones …

As mentioned above the song is composed by C.Ramchandra and it is written by Rajinder Krishan.

This article is written by Avinash Scrapwala, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a contributor to this blog. This article is meant to be posted in atulsongaday.me. If this article appears in sites like lyricstrans.com and ibollywoodsongs.com etc then it is piracy of the copyright content of atulsongaday.me and is a punishable offence under the existing laws.

Atulites – Mumbai Meet – 20th-21st Nov’16
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My sincere thanks to Atul ji for making this year -2016 a ‘memorable year’ for me. This year, I was able to meet many of our regular members at Chennai, Bengaluru and Mumbai. In addition, I could also meet new personalities in this field of Hindi Film Music.

I may well become known as ‘always present Avinash’ instead of ‘illusive Avinash’ if it goes on like this.🙂. Bharat Bhai ji ne naam bhi aisa diya hai ki iske viruddharthi shabd agar aap ‘Google’ par dhoondhe to bhi bade atpate se hain
If you search for the opposite of ‘elusive’ you get this on Google page:

The word “elusive” has many antonyms, but most of them do not convey the exact opposite meaning the way an antonym should. Three words that reflect the opposing meaning of elusive well are “confronting,” “encountering” and “facing.”

I do not know if he has deliberately chosen to use the word ‘illusive’ instead of ‘elusive’ (Deshmukh Sir has pointed this out in one of his comments) because both have different meanings.

I would like to thank Shri Bharat Bhai Upadhyay ji, Shri Sadanand Kamath ji and Shri Arun Deshmukh Sir for all the arrangements of the ‘Mumbai Gang out’ on 20th November 2016. I also thank all our respected guests and regulars who attended the ‘gang out’ for being there and gracing the occasion.

***

On 19th November evening, when I boarded the ‘Samarsata’ (I thought they spelled wrong, and it should be ‘Samarasta’, but, even announcement at the Railway Station sounded to me as ‘Samar –Sata’🙂 ) Express at Nagpur railway station, I was more than happy and heaved a great sigh of relief.

After missing the ‘Mumbai gang outs’ three times in a row + one (which did not happen due to very less participants) finally I was going to attend it this time on 20th November 2016.

I could not attend the very first gang-out in Dec’14 due to certain developments at my work place. It happened the Second time in Aug’15 when the train ‘Prerna Express’ (Ahmedabad bound) was cancelled due to heavy rains. I was supposed to travel from Anand to Mumbai on that occasion. It happened for the third time in this current year 2016 in May when again due to work priorities I had to cancel my trip.

Fourth time it was again in this year in September when a possibility of a ‘gang-out’ was being explored but it finally didn’t materialize due to low availability of participants.

On all the previous four occasions mentioned above, my train tickets to and fro were booked and they had to be cancelled at the last minute resulting in ‘revenue-generation’ to the IR and in turn to GOI. It was a small contribution from my side for my love ‘the Indian Railways’. I have been making such contributions for the cause of the nation right from 30th Nov’1988 when I began my professional career.🙂

I arrived at the venue of meeting on the morning of 20th november 2016 with our guest invitee Mr.Deepak Chowdhari, who had joined me at Badnera Station. Three of our Senior members from Mumbai were already available there to welcome us.

After seeing me in person, they all had just this one line of remark … “aakhir aap aa hi gaye”… ‘so finally you have come for ‘Mumbai Gang-out’ !!

Sadanand ji specially made it a point to request Bharat Bhai to now remove the ‘tag’ – ‘illusive’ that he added to my name due to my tendency of backing out from previous ‘gang-outs’ at the last moment.

I will not go into the details on the proceedings of that day which our respected Deshmukh Sir has already covered in his two posts on this ‘gang out’.

I will straight away come to this song which I had already chosen in September 16 when the modalities of ‘gang out’ were being finalised.

Thinking about our respected Deshmukh Sir – ‘our in-house encyclopedia’ and keeping in mind his ‘core’ area of interest and the write-ups on the topics that I liked most i.e. ‘mythological movies’, I searched for a song that would fit in expressing my feelings of my eagerness to meet him and other members, I had chosen this film ‘Krishna Sudaama-1957’ and this song that is being discussed today.

After attending the ‘gang-out’, meeting all the members and staying with Deshmukh Sir for a day, I feel that I should pat myself on my own back for chosing this song which is just the perfect song to express my feelings.

Why?

Let me elaborate on this…

What we seek from these meetings or ‘gang outs’? What does one get and what does one feel after meeting so many knowledgeable persons in Music, movies and/or and HFM?

(PS: Now Deshmukh Sir, in his second post on the ‘gang out’ has also discussed it. I had already drafted this post in advance and I was happy to know that his views were similar to my feelings on this matter.

The first and foremost gain is the ‘everlasting joy of meeting people whom we already know through this blog’ and then the ‘eternal happiness’ we feel after meeting these people.

These are people with whom over the years we have developed a ‘strong bond of relationship’, and meeting them in person is like getting into a ‘different world altogether’ (Words fail me here to express my feelings).

In this context, what motivates and inspires me is ‘HFM’, this blog ‘ASAD’, then meeting team members of regular contributors and visitors of this blog, and last but not the least is the discussions on and about ‘HFM’.

And if one is a keen observer of people around us one can learn a lot and learn many new things in life from them.

All the things that could motivate me, inspire me and rejuvenate me were going to be there in the meet, so what more could I have asked for?

In my journey of life I have always taken care to seek ‘blessings’ and ‘best wishes’ from elderly and senior people, and also from people that I came in contact with during my professional or personal interactions. That gives me utmost satisfaction and somewhere I feel that it is this goodwill and best wishes of people accumulated over the years that is my wealth and it is this that enables me to keep me going and even succeeding in this journey of my life.

All the persons that I met in this ‘Mumbai gang out’ were seniors to me – in age and knowledge both. The only person (actually there are two) that, if by mistake🙂 looked like younger than me also had ‘greater knowledge’ of classical music and instruments. So they were all seniors to me.

They all blessed me by sharing their thoughts and their knowledge. Just the act of being in the company of such music lovers can cause one to forget all the ‘griefs’, sorrows and ‘pains of life’- if one had any.

And what a day it was !

I got this opportunity to meet all the stalwarts in person. Each and every person was so passionate about music, so generous in sharing things and so happy to meet each other.

I was to stay with Deshmukh Sir at his home for a day.Though I had taken his appointment for a full day during my communications with him prior to the visit, I was not sure if I would be staying with him, since I had never visited his place earlier.

I called him a day before the gang out (the same day evening I had to board the train) to check his schedule and my plan of return journey. He specifically reminded and insisted that ‘you are staying with me after the gang out was over’.

All of us are aware that he stays alone at Mumbai. During the travel to his home he was explaining to me that it’s a bachelor’s house and that I will find it like that and he hoped that I would feel myselfcomfortable there etc etc.

After reaching his place, I found that I had reached a ‘very well organized and maintained place’. But more surprise was in store for me. Our respected Guru ji kept inquiring with me about what I would like to have in dinner etc etc. I thought he was going to order the food from outside. But there at his place he had already done some planning for me with some special menus and for every meal time he could offer me multiple choices or combinations of multiple choices.

And last but not the least was the option of ‘food cooked by our Guru ji himself’:)

What more could I have wished for?

I will never ever forget that evening’s ‘Khichdi’, it was like ‘amrit tulya’ for me because it was cooked by Guru ji himself. This was the ‘mahaprasad’ that Guruji cooked specially for me with all his love and compassion therein.

Next day’s morning’s tea, breakfast, and lunch was a ‘divine’ experience for me and I will cherish these memories forever.

In addition, the ‘wisdom’ he shared with me and his guidance on certain aspects and on the queries which I had noted down to for discussing with him. My cup of joy was full to the brim.

***

For me this gang out and meeting all the ‘stalwarts’ there was like having the ‘darshan’ of the ‘viraat roop’ of Lord Shri Krishna. The ‘encyclopedia’ already there and with so many thoughts shared and so many things discussed was nothing less than ‘geeta ka gyaan of HFM’ for me.

My HFM related queries that I had noted down to be anwered by our seniors were like the ‘grievances’ of Sudama that he sought to get redressed from Lord Krishna in this song.🙂. The ‘nirdhanta’, ‘poverty’ or ‘inadequacies’ of Sudama is like my ignorance on the vast treasure trove of HFM.

What I got during my two days stay there in the form of ‘joy’, ‘happiness’, ‘learning’, ‘discussions’ and being a part of that ‘company’ is like getting ‘blessed by divine powers’.

It was as if the divine and spiritual powers of music had taken me to the path of ultimate happiness and peace!!

As per HFGK Vol III this movie had as many ten songs composed by Husnlal-Bhagatram. Lyrics for these ten songs are shared by Qamar Jalalabadi – six songs, Pt.Radheyshyam – two songs and Ramesh Gupta – two songs.

HFGK mentions that the recording of songs of this movie was completed in 1954 itself though this movie was released in 1957.

This movie was passed by Censor Board on 24.01.1957.

Today’s song is sung by Mohd Rafi and written by Qamar Jalalabadi. Music is composed by Husnlal-Bhagatram.

***

After the gang-out was over, its report was to be presented in the blog. As Kamath Sir was to get occupied with his already planned schedule and Bharat ji said that his will be only in ‘very few lines,’ we all requested Guru ji that he should write the posts. At that time I jokingly told him that from my end I will do a post as a ‘return-gift’ in return of his posts. So here is that post, and it is not a ‘return gift’ but my ‘homage’ to all whom I met on that day.

This article is meant to be posted in atulsongaday.me. If this article appears in sites like lyricstrans.com and ibollywoodsongs.com etc then it is piracy of the copyright content of atulsongaday.me and is a punishable offence under the existing laws.

This article is meant to be posted in atulsongaday.me. If this article appears in sites like lyricstrans.com and ibollywoodsongs.com etc then it is piracy of the copyright content of atulsongaday.me and is a punishable offence under the existing laws.

This article is meant to be posted in atulsongaday.me. If this article appears in sites like lyricstrans.com and ibollywoodsongs.com etc then it is piracy of the copyright content of atulsongaday.me and is a punishable offence under the existing laws.

“Swaami”(1977) was produced by Jaya Chakravarty (Hema Malini’s mother) and directed by Basu Chatterji for Jayasarthy Combines. This movie was based on a novel of Sharatchandra Chattopadhyay. The movie had Girish Karnad, Vikram, Shabana Azmi, Shahikala, Reetu Kamal, Dheeraj Kumar, Preeti Ganguly, Sudha Shivpuri, Utpal Dutt, Suresh Chatwal, Vinita Dutt/Das, Somnath, Vinod Dewan, Karthik Dutta, Deepak Kumar etc in it with Hema Malini and Dharmendra in guest appearances.Read more on this topic…

This article is written by Avinash Scrapwala, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a contributor to this blog. This article is meant to be posted in atulsongaday.me. If this article appears in sites like lyricstrans.com and ibollywoodsongs.com etc then it is piracy of the copyright content of atulsongaday.me and is a punishable offence under the existing laws.